


Waiting for Spectre

by Castillon02



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), SPECTRE (2015), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dragons, Dubious Science, Guns, M/M, Nail Polish, Post-SPECTRE, Scrabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-04-25 21:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 10,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4976587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fills for MI6 Cafe prompts on Tumblr, written pre- and post-Spectre. </p><p>Chapter eleven: Felix helps Bond on a mission; Bond wins a bet. James/Felix ficlet</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How do you solve a problem like a 00?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q takes charge of 007, who has made trouble for himself due to depression and boredom. For the prompt 'Exploding Objects'

The wrinkles around M’s eyes seemed to have deepened overnight. “I don’t care what you do,” he said, steepling his fingers on his desk. “Shag him in a supply closet if that’s what takes your fancy and keeps him distracted. But since you seem to think he’s more useful outside of a detention center than in one, he’s your responsibility now, and any future property damage while he’s on leave is coming out of  _your_ budget.”

Q held his hands together behind his back lest he do something unfortunate with them. “I see,” he said. “You’re prepared to equip our future agents with rubber band slingshots and a couple of tin cans tied together with string.”

M’s lips thinned. “I assumed that Q Branch prided itself on its ability to get things done. Is one agent going to present too much of a challenge for you?”  

_Apparently too much of a challenge for_ you, Q thought but didn’t say. If it hadn’t meant turning his back on M, he would have directed a pointed glance at the shoeless, Bond-shaped haze of alcohol that security had poured into an upright position next to M’s office door. Instead Q raised his eyebrows and said, “No, sir. Commencing shagging at once, sir. 007, come on, we’re going to go find you a broom closet.”

At the door, Q held out his elbow and Bond hooked the arm that wasn’t in a cast around it automatically; apparently his manners were located in the reachable parts of his soused hindbrain. “Brrrroooom closchet,” Bond slurred, letting Q hold some of his weight. “Right. Soundsch good.”

“Were you actually aware enough to follow that conversation?” Q asked after they’d closed M’s door. 

“Spy thing,” Bond told him with a suddenly improved level of enunciation. “We’re never too smashed to be nosy.”

“Yes, you’re all great big nosy fakers,” Q agreed genially, not having the energy to be indignant about it. Bond continued to lean on him and they made their way down the corridors with only slightly more than the minimal amount of stumbling into the walls.

With his free hand, Q texted a series of orders to his more competent assistant. By the time they reached the Branch, one of the smaller, securer conference rooms had had a cot, a sleeping bag, a gallon of water, an empty bucket, and Bond’s spare suit bundled into it next to the big steel conference table. For nourishment, Bond could make use of the supplies on the table, which included a coffee pot with coffee grounds and creamer next to it, a crate of sealed water bottles, a bulk package of protein bars, and a bowl of fruit.

“Home, sweet home?” Bond asked, surveying the barren, white-tiled room. Easy cleanup was a high priority in Q Branch.

“Leave without permission and I’ll pawn you off on someone in Medical who owes me an enormous favor,” Q said. Someone with a lot of tranquilizers.  

Bond sighed and crawled onto his cot and into his sleeping bag without bothering to undress.  “Wasn’t that many bar fights,” he said, peering up at Q with all the seeming innocence of someone who hadn’t caused Q and a good many other people to spend half the night and most of the early morning battling it out with self-righteous twits from MI5 and the Met.   

Q narrowed his eyes at him. “One archaic exploding pen in Soho is one too many. If you can’t exercise your freedom responsibly while you’re on leave, then you’ll be grounded here and I’ll give you something constructive to do.”

With that, he spun on his heel and left, trying not to let on that he had no idea what that constructive something would be. He only knew that he couldn’t just sit back and leave Bond to rot. 


	2. Persistence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A courier shows up with something Bond thought he’d never see again. For the Spectre Fest prompt “Never say never.”

When Bond heard someone pounding on the front door of his MI6 safe house and a gruff voice informing him that he had a “Package delivery!”, he felt he could be forgiven for creeping out of the back door in his housecoat, gun in hand, to get the drop on whatever particularly stupid assailant had found out where he was living. Mallory had put him on leave, but where was the harm in exercising his license to kill when a reason for it showed up on his doorstep?

The reason had thinning gray hair and a courier uniform, which was well within Bond’s typical assailant schema, but she also had a large belly and sagging breasts. Not the usual type of female assassin, but perhaps she was a nonconformist or a dedicated amateur.  

“Drop your weapon,” Bond said, emerging from the side of the house with his gun drawn.

“Jesus fuck!” the woman cried, flinging her satchel to the ground and raising her hands up high. She danced backward off the path and onto Bond’s lawn, in the direction of a gray Mercedes van parked by the road, only to freeze when Bond cocked his gun at her.

“Who do you work for?” Bond asked.

“Harding Couriers!” the woman said: the same company name that was painted on the van in bold white letters. “I have–papers–” Her hand twitched toward her pocket but she didn’t try to take them out. “You have a package!” she added, nodding in the direction of Bond’s doorstep. Sweat dripped down her ashen face. Could be innocent fear; might also be guilt or nerves. 

Bond kept the gun aimed at her. “Open it,” he said, nodding at the parcel on his doorstep. It was a small, relatively thin cardboard box, about the right size for a hardcover book if Bond were the type to receive books in the post.

He wasn’t. He was much more likely to have an idiot on a quest for vengeance try to drop off a lethal boobytrap of some kind, which was why he supervised the courier from a distance of several meters as she slit open Bond’s package with a box cutter.

“Jesus!” the woman said again when she got it open, but added, “I think it’s something you’ll like,” with a wry tilt of her eyebrows. “Can I show you?” she asked.

“Yes,” Bond said, and came in a bit closer. So far, the woman seemed to be all she said she was; at least, nothing had gone kaboom yet. “Keep your hands where I can see them,” he warned as the woman picked the box up. “I don’t miss.” 

The woman kept her hands wrapped around the box’s flaps and carefully presented the open box for Bond’s inspection.

There was a gun in the box. A Walther PPK that Bond would recognize anywhere.  

“Put the box down and step away,” he told the woman, and when the woman did, he lowered his own weapon. “Who is this from?”

“The package is signed Quinton Smith,” the woman said. “It’s from Macau.”

It had to be from Q.  

The woman’s shoulders dropped a little now that she didn’t have a gun aimed at her. “I, er…I need you to sign,” she said, looking down for a moment before setting her shoulders back again, this time paired with a determined glare. “We get in trouble if we come back without a signature, you know.”

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” Bond said, and he was, although this was probably the most interesting thing to happen to him all week. “If you wait outside, I’ll put the guns away and I’ll be glad to compensate you for your time. Then I’ll sign.”

He tipped the woman (three hundred pounds, Bond’s standard “Sorry I thought you were an assassin” tip), signed the necessary form, and didn’t blame the woman when she fast-walked to her company van without ever fully turning her back on him.    

A few minutes later he got a text from an unknown number.  _Will you be coming in to return your equipment?_

Bond was currently barred from MI6 premises until he “finished his rehab.” M hadn’t been clear whether that was for his shoulder or his alcoholism, but Bond had been working on both. 

An equipment return, however, was a perfectly legitimate excuse to leave his boring recovery hellhole and demonstrate his improved mission readiness, or at least agitate some people who deserved it instead of a hapless courier.

Bond gripped the gun and watched the green light flash. It had been cleaned, but when he brought it to his nose he could still smell the faint but unmistakable musky scent of reptile.  

_I wouldn’t want to deprive you_ , Bond texted back. He was never going to ask Q how he had retrieved the gun. The little shit was cocky enough as it was.


	3. The Dog Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Q Branch recovers from an attack from within, Bond is convinced to take care of a dog. For the Spectre Fest Prompt "No."

Bond almost tried shooting the door open with the Walther he’d been about to return before it occurred to him to press his palm against the security panel next to one of the lights flashing red around the door frame.  

The security panel flashed green, and Q Branch opened and slammed shut behind him.

Tight-faced Q Branchers stiffened in unison at his entry before going back to typing on their computers or mobiles, bandaging each other’s cuts, speaking into headsets, and, in one odd case, murmuring into a curly-haired lurcher’s floppy ears to try to coax it into drinking from its water bowl. Bond scanned the crowd, but although many people were keeping a wary hand on the seemingly-ordinary household object of their choice, it appeared that the primary danger had passed.  

So why was Q Branch still on lockdown? Most of the wounds looked minor, consistent with shrapnel damage, but at the least Medical should have been down here already.

The tactical information screens posted around the branch scrolled with updates:

_Nguyen’s bandaged up; anyone else need first aid?–Topps_

_I need bandages after dealing with Townsend’s blown up bits–Fuchs_

_I’ve traced Matt’s financial activities for the past six months; analysis pending–Miller_

_003’s being handled; could use evac assistance in ~10 minutes–Jordan_

_Can help with evac–Layeni_

At the top of the screens, one conversation stood frozen and unaltered, an apparent monument to the moment approximately seven minutes ago when things had gone to shit.

_We’re compromised. Matt. Stalling him.–Q_

_On it–Nguyen_

_Permission to test the thing?–Townsend_

_DO NOT TEST THE–Nguyen_

The lurcher suddenly caught sight of him and barked, its tail whipping into the air before it crouched like a runner at the starting gate. “Don’t!” said the woman who’d been handling him, but by then the dog was already off like a shot aimed in Bond’s direction.

The dog galloped beautifully, but Bond side-stepped at the last second and then its long limbs flailed, puppy-like, in a futile attempt to put on the brakes before it slammed into the wall with an audible thud.

Slumped against the wall, the dog shook its long, narrow head for a moment, growled at him, and then stood up and began to bark, its green eyes focused on Bond’s face.

Bond didn’t hear it at first. But once he did, he couldn’t unhear it. The dog was barking in a pattern.

Long-long-short-long. Long-long-short-long. Long-long-short-long.

Q. Q. Q.

There were traces of blood between the dog’s teeth. Probably from where it had bitten the shit out of Matt after Townsend had aimed his experiment at the wrong person, with explosive consequences.

“No,” Bond said, because that was ridiculous.

The dog stopped barking and touched its cold nose to Bond’s knuckles. Y-E-S, it whuffed at him in Morse, and whined for a moment with its ears drooping.

Aww, the poor wee little–

“ _No_ ,” Bond said to the dog. To Q.    

“Ah, Bond, good,” Nguyen said, walking up with a thin cardboard box tucked under her left arm. Her button-down sleeve had been ripped off at the right shoulder, exposing a muscular bicep with a large bandage wrapped around it, and she looked as tired as any lieutenant would after taking the helm in an emergency. She kneeled down to talk to the dog face-to-face. “How would you feel about some protective custody until you change back?” she asked the dog while Bond wondered if they had all gone insane. “I’ll keep the Branch safe after we lift the lockdown, and Bond can keep you from going crazy. Yes?”

The dog nodded, which was the clincher as far as Bond was concerned. He didn’t  _feel_  insane, and dogs did not nod naturally.  

“Here’s a service vest so you can take him into the shops,” Nguyen said, standing and shoving the cardboard box into Bond’s hands. “Use the credit card from your last mission for his expenses. Don’t tell anyone about this. We’ll owe you.”

“Wait. I’m not taking him,” Bond said, balking. He didn’t need to acquire some Quartermaster-sized baggage that would need to be fed and taken on walkies.  

Q sat down in front of him, cocked his head to the side, and looked up at him with wide, trusting green eyes set into a slender, smiling black doggy face with wee floppy triangle ears on top. As if that weren’t enough, he licked Bond’s hand and gave a little whine and a tiny, hopeful wag of his tail.

“Manipulative little bastard, aren’t you?” Bond said.

Q wagged his tail energetically, grinned a long-tongued grin, and stuck his head out the passenger window of Bond’s new Aston Martin the whole time that Bond was driving them home.  


	4. Let me walk you home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q gets emotional when he hasn't slept in a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically written for the Spectre Fest "Exploding Objects" prompt, because I forgot I'd already done that one, but I've cheated and put it in for the "Health and Safety" entry instead. Q's unfortunate work hours are certainly OH&S violations!

“Oh my god,” Q said, fisting handfuls of his wild hair and yanking at them before leaning forward to glare at his screen. “Oh my god, no. No, why would you do this to me, you miserable bastard son of a goat-fucking pig?”

“There must be something you can do,” Bond said half-heartedly, more concerned with Q’s uncharacteristic language than he was with whatever was happening on his screen. He wracked his brains to remember the last time he’d seen Q with his eyes closed for longer than one of his blinking micronaps. Maybe last week. The reason Carson had all but shoved him into Q’s office was becoming clear.  

Q turned on him with his eyes wide and fiery against the glow of his computer screen. “There’s nothing, Bond,” Q hissed. “Nothing. It’s all. Fucking. Gone. Everything.” He collapsed on his desk, his face buried in his arms.   

Bond had a brief moment of hope that Q was finally going to go to sleep and would feel better and be able to do something about this crisis of unsaved work in the morning.

Then Q rose from his chair with a terrible smile on his face and his hands balled into fists. “It was Carson. Had to have been,” he said. “It shouldn’t take long to do in Carson; he’s always forgetting his self-defense gear. I’ll be back in a minute to start this over again. Just have to make sure we don’t have any future sabotage.”

Bond had stepped in front of him before he’d even managed to finish his insane monologue. Christ, was this how the maniacs he dealt with got started? One day the ctrl-s command got switched around and the next day they started their bloody reign of terror?

“Only one of us has a license to kill, Q,” Bond warned. He wasn’t armed. He didn’t need to be.

Q glared at him, his hands flexing at his sides, and bared his teeth. Bared his teeth! Like an animal. (Or a 00, and Christ, Bond did _not_ want to imagine that.)

Bond held his hands palm-up. De-escalation. “You’ve been awake for too long,” he said. “Your brain is sending you false signals.”  

Q growled low in his throat and took a step forward. “I’ve been awake long enough to finish this project, if Carson hadn’t–”

“You just growled at me,” Bond interrupted. “Now, I want you to think carefully: On a normal day at work, do you growl at people?”

From the long pause that followed, Q’s fried, workaholic brain actually tried to think that one through. “Er…no,” he finally said.

“Right, no,” Bond said. “Your sleep deprivation has made you irrational. Your thinking is compromised.”

Q sat down in his chair again with a troubled expression on his face. “I suppose growling is a bit unorthodox,” he murmured to himself before looking back up at Bond. “My brain is really compromised?” he asked with an unhappy little frown.

“I’m afraid so,” Bond said.

“Is your brain compromised, too?” Q’s frown deepened.

“Er…” Bond considered his mental health cocktail of depression, alcoholism, and PTSD. “My brain is as functional as it normally is,” he settled on saying.

Q slumped with relief. “Yes! That’s good.”

“Oh?” Bond asked, arching his eyebrows. He felt a small smile tugging up the corners of his lips.  

Q nodded. “If my decision-making capabilities are impaired, then you’ll have to be the voice in my ear, 007,” he said with a determined nod. “So, tell me: What should I do now?”

Bond looked at Q’s trusting face. He could probably convince Q to do any number of things at this point. Thank God Carson had had the sense to come to him. “You should go home,” Bond said. “And I’ll go with you to make sure you get there safely, just like you do with me for missions. All right?”

“That sounds good,” Q said.

Bond still had to hold him back by the scruff of his cardigan when Q saw Carson in the halls, but a quickly yelped, “It’s not deleted, I just made it look like it was and saved it under a different name so you’d have to stop working!” saved Carson from Q’s impotent wrath.

“Let’s get you home before you explode on anyone else,” Bond said, sending Carson a thumbs-up behind Q’s back as they passed.

“Well, you’re suggesting it, so it’s probably a good idea,” Q said, still a little red-faced from his prior rage.

Bond couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll remind you later that you said that.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Concrit would be lovely! I'm always looking to improve. Thank you for reading! <3


	5. Size is Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q can’t make all of Bond’s problems go away, but he can take care of the biggest one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Spectre Fest prompt "[True] Love doesn't solve everything." 
> 
> A big thank you to Linorien and isthisrubble for being wonderful betas; this wee fluffy little story would’ve had less context and more Americanisms without them!

Nine days. He should have been here sooner. He would have been, except he’d been busy trying to rewrite the laws of physics, and he hadn’t been sure—there were times when the extent of his genius surprised even him. He hadn’t wanted to give Bond false hope, but he would have if Bond had asked, would have said that he’d wave his fairy Quartermaster wand and turn Bond back into a pumpkin again before he knew it. If he had given Bond the chance to ask.  

Q took a deep breath and waited until his hands stopped shaking before walking through the person-sized door of MI6’s biggest safe-house.

“The medieval killing machine joke practically makes itself,” Bond said once Q was only a few metres away. “So save it.” He heaved a sigh that made his great chest swell against the concrete and sent a curl of smoke drifting from one nostril all the way up to the scorched ceiling of the fireproofed hangar.

Q kept walking forward even though every evolutionary instinct in his body was screaming at him to freeze where he stood. This was Bond. Bond needed this equipment. Bond might even need  _him_.

“Not that I’m likely to be able to kill anything more than cows anytime soon,” Bond added with a low growl. “Hard to spy on anything when you’re the size of Westminster. Even my shits have a constant audience.” Bond glanced around the hangar, currently emptied of its guards and scientists, and reached out to bump the tip of his snout very gently into Q’s chest, making Q stumble a little, a shout crumbling in his throat before it could escape. “Thanks for the break, by the way,” Bond said, bare inches from Q’s face.

He could do this. Letting his hindbrain call the shots was for stupid agents, not Quartermasters. “No problem,” Q managed to say, and patted Bond on his golden, scaly chin.

Q had seen satellite images taken at the time of the transformation—Bond bursting out of a cloud of shards that had once been a wooden house, bleeding from his wings and staggering only a few meters into the air before crashing back onto the craggy mountain face and letting out a gout of flame that had incinerated everything within a twenty meter radius, including whatever had changed his shape so impossibly. Q had also looked at photos taken by the people who had smuggled Bond back into the country overnight, and by the herpetologist who had tended Bond’s wounds.

He’d technically already seen Bond’s stocky, golden-scaled body; his well-muscled haunches and forelimbs; his sinuous neck; his leathery wings, folded densely against his broad back; and his powerful, nearly prehensile tail.

But the photos hadn’t prepared him for the feeling of immense smallness that juddered through him as Bond loomed over him. Bond wasn’t even standing! Just lying belly-down on the concrete! But his golden toes were almost as long as Q was tall, with dagger-like claws at the end of them, and the square, cavernous jaws just in front of Q’s face could probably snap him up and swallow him whole without any trouble.

“All right?” Q dimly heard Bond ask, and the great golden head pulled back a little ways.

A moment later, a puff of hot, cow-scented air enveloped him. Q wrinkled his nose at the smell and realized he’d been staring, his brain zoned out while he tried to comprehend the existence of a land animal large enough to eat an elephant for breakfast. “We could rent you out as a steam cleaner,” Q said, recovering himself.

Bond gave a rumbling chuckle that sounded a bit forced. “That’s one M hasn’t thought of. He’s been trying to figure out what to do with me.”  

Oh! Right. Q tilted his neck up so he could look Bond in the eye. “That,” he said, “is why I’m here. I’ve made something that should widen your options. I mean,” he paused, “that’s why I’m here, aside from…” He looked at Bond and made a flapping hand gesture in order to indicate the whole messy, unarticulated  _feelings_  business that they had going on between them, and the fact that he would have visited Bond even if he hadn’t come up with a device to help him with his new condition.   

In reply, Bond’s colossal golden head came back in very close, and Q couldn’t help but shut his eyes. He felt something like a hot, raspy flannel slide against his cheek before the warmth of Bond’s body retreated a little.

Had Bond just licked him? Was that a dragon kiss?  

Q opened his eyes only to find himself staring into a brilliant blue one with a slitted reptilian pupil that was bigger than his head. It was hard to tell Bond’s emotions given his current lack of facial plasticity, but Bond’s long stare seemed to indicate a desire to closely observe Q’s reactions, which meant he probably wasn’t sure how Q would take being lick-kissed by a dragon. Or perhaps he simply wasn’t sure how Q would take being kissed by Bond: they had managed to communicate a strong mutual interest to each other, but work had been the worst kind of cockblock. Kissing wasn’t quite usual.    

Q leaned forward and pressed his lips to the underside of Bond’s eye, where the scales seemed a little paler and thinner and there was a chance that Bond might actually feel it. Then, just in case, he stood on his tiptoes and kissed Bond’s upper eye ridge as well, so Bond could see his intentions even if he couldn’t feel them.

He was glad that, dragon or not, kissing might still become usual for them.

Bond drew back again after a moment, looking at Q with both eyes instead of a single very close one. “I suppose true love’s kiss can’t solve everything,” he said, and Q could hear the smile in his voice even if it wasn’t on his face.

“Worth a shot,” Q agreed, his voice automatically as calm and steady as if he were directing an agent under fire, because apparently his brain thought that the delighted fluttering in his belly–true love!–counted as a critical situation.   

They stared at each other for one of those long moments that Q would classify as sickeningly infatuated if he were an onlooker, but which felt wonderful when he was one of the participants.          

Then one of the hangar doors opened and closed, signaling that someone had come back early from the long lunch break that Q had sent everyone out on, and Q remembered that he had come here for a reason, and with something better than a fairy tale solution on his side: science. And, thanks to science, a shrink ray.  

* * *

Bond’s first act once he was back to being man-sized was to pounce on Q, enveloping him in a tangle of heated reptile limbs and a tail that curled around him at least twice and occasionally squeezed all of the air out of Q’s lungs in his enthusiasm. “You brilliant fucking genius,” he said, more than once, and with such thankfulness that Q understood how fully Bond had feared being stuck in the hangar, or somewhere like it, for the rest of his life, a living and purposeless secret.

Q’s first act after Bond was back to being man-sized was to wave away the concerned scientist who wasn’t sure whether Bond was attacking him or not. “ _Your_  brilliant fucking genius,” Q reminded him, setting the scientist straight at the same time, and did his best to squeeze Bond back after the air returned to his lungs. “And M says he has a spot for you on the emergency air evacuation teams after you’ve done some training.”  

“ _My_  brilliant fucking genius,” Bond repeated. His wings flapped a little, as though he’d lost control over them, and he lick-kissed Q again from jaw to temple, warm and rough and a little wet, smelling only slightly and very manageably of cow now that his mouth wasn’t bigger than Q’s entire body.

True love hadn’t completely cured Bond’s scaly little problem, but Bond was able to go home with Q at the end of the day, and he was able to start rescuing injured agents and killing baddies again after a couple of months, and that, Q thought, counted for a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism is always welcome. Thank you for reading! <3


	6. Compromise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q wants Bond to move in, but finds it unexpectedly hard to make room for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the MI6 Cafe Prompt “Possession,” this ficlet actually originated after a Cafe discussion in which someone commented that Q probably drank Tesco’s own brand the most out of habit, despite aspirations to be fancier.
> 
> Thank you to Linorien for the helpful beta!

Bond shook his head. “Q, some of it is almost a decade old,” he said with an emphatic wave of the white bin bag in his hand. “Face it: you’re not going to drink it, and I need somewhere to put the groceries and the M16.”

Q lifted his chin and squared his shoulders in front of the pantry whose contents were in dispute. “I’m saving it for a special occasion!” he said.

Bond moved forward. His polished black chukka boots stopped an inch away from Q’s hairy feet, close enough for Q to smell the leftover curry on his breath, to see his own face reflected in Bond’s very blue irises. Bond raised a merciless eyebrow. “If you downsize to a single shelf and have five cups a day, then you might drink it all in a couple of decades.”

Q stared into Bond’s resolute face and felt his shoulders begin to droop. He’d never had to deal with putting away mounds of actual foodstuffs (as opposed to mounds of take-away boxes) before Bond had moved in. He’d known something would have to change. The calculations of storage volume could not be denied. Nearly the first thing Bond had unpacked was his set of Ginsu culinary knives, and of course real groceries had followed. It was just…

“But it’s my tea,” he said. His fancy tea, the tins with special flavors and exotic ingredients and obscene price tags.  

So  _what_  if…if…

“You only ever drink Tesco’s own brand anyway!” Bond said, pulling back and throwing his hands up in exasperation. The white bin bag flailed through the air behind him.          

“Damn it, it’s just there, all right! I can’t help my pre-caffeinated inertia!” Q said.

They spent a few moments like that, Q’s back against the cream-colored pantry door that Bond was glaring at, and Bond a few inches away with the whole of the “economically sized,” fluorescently-lit kitchen behind him. The question of whether they should have got their own house right away instead of trialing with Q’s cluttered two-bedroom flashed through his mind, to be instantly rejected. They’d only be having this argument while dealing with the added stress of moving house at the same time.

Bond sighed and the line of his shoulders softened. “I’m not complaining about your pre-caffeinated mindset,” he pointed out, softer, his eyes on Q’s as he leaned in. He traced the corner of Q’s mouth with the rough pad of his thumb, a reminder of the times when Q had kept it slack and open for him in the slow, early hours of the morning, and Bond had returned the favor. They could do that more often now that Bond lived with him.   

Q sighed. “I know,” he said morosely. He dropped his forehead against Bond’s good shoulder. “You have a point, I suppose. A few of them must be expired by now.”     

Bond dropped the rubbish bag behind him. “I’m not asking you to throw all of them away,” he said, and wrapped his arms around Q’s shoulders. “But at least bin the expired ones, and the ones with lemongrass or peach, which you’d hate anyway. And the potatoes still need a home that isn’t in the closet with our coats and shoes.”

It was Q’s turn to arch an eyebrow. He leaned back enough to meet Bond’s eyes and said, “Oh? Did you have something to ask me without involving rubbish bags and dramatics?”

Bond grimaced. “Q, light of my life, we’re having storage difficulties and I feel resentful of your massive, dusty, unused tea collection for taking up space even though I know it’s important to you. What can we do to compromise?”

Sardonic tone of voice but reasonably sincere message; Q would take it. “Can we have kinky make-up sex if I figure out a solution?” he asked.

“Good boys do deserve rewards,” Bond purred, a tongue-in-cheek caricature of himself that managed to make Q grin while also sending a tingle of anticipation down his spine.  

Q gave the matter a few moments of thought and then steepled his fingers in his best genius pose. “According to my calculations,” he began snottily, before continuing on in his regular voice to say, “you can indeed help me bin some of it. The rest can go into a box and temporarily swap places with the potatoes, but they’ll eventually be transferred into the tea chest I’m going to design to fit in that awkward space next to the refrigerator. I’ll endeavor to try a new tin at least once a week and donate anything I don’t like to Q Branch. You can help me with that too.”

“In that case,” Bond said, “your first reward can be a cup of tea. After we check the expiration dates.” He picked up the rubbish bag again.

Sorting through a mountain of tea tins was not how he’d planned to spend his evening. Q settled against the pantry at a more seductive angle. “I thought we were going to have sex?”

Bond held him close and snogged him within an inch of his life. Then, while Q panted for breath, he said, right next to Q’s ear: “Consider that a sample. If we get this tea taken care of, there will be a lot more of it in your future, but if we don’t…well, the sample stays tucked away in its closet, doesn’t it?” He smoothed a hand meaningfully over the placket of Q’s trousers, ignoring the whine in the back of Q’s throat as he brushed against Q’s half-hard cock. “Hmm?”   

“Damn your innuendos and motivational tricks,” Q said, but he opened the pantry door and they got to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism is welcome; I'm always trying to improve. Thank you for reading! <3


	7. Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond indulges in a little femininity.

Sometimes, every so often, just occasionally, Bond will step out to the corner store and pick up some milk, booze, and nail polish. 

His latest find is called _Paint the Town_. As he walks back home through the crisp autumn air, Bond imagines that the red of his new polish matches the lingerie he’s wearing beneath his trousers. Boy briefs, maybe, for the familiar shape, but with delicate lace at the edges, scratching his thighs, and made of a soft, silky material that would rub enticingly at his cock without offering any relief. 

It’s silly. There isn’t anyone Bond knows who wouldn’t prefer him naked, or suited, or just about anything but lingeried-like-a-girl. Certainly not anyone in his little black book of married women, who tend to get snippy if Bond’s actions don’t live up to the masculine promise of his body. 

He could buy the panties for himself, he supposes, but what would happen when he looked in the mirror and saw a scarred old man, pushing fifty, with a wee clutch of prettiness wrapped around his sac? It would be like a strip of duct tape rolled onto a fractured wall. Really beautiful, soft-feeling duct tape over a hard, broken wall. 

No, it wouldn’t do to buy the lingerie. 

But he’s too old and too rebellious not to indulge himself, so he goes home and gets out his nail clippers and file, his base coat and top coat, the turquoise gel toe separators, and the polish remover in case he smudges one of his layers and has to start over. He sets up next to the bath, conscious of the need to wash his feet beforehand and the easy clean-up offered by the tiled floor in case the polish spills. 

One frantic Google search for how to remove nail polish from the carpet is enough for him. His first time had been nothing but trouble: one layer of dark blue-grey, _Punk Midnight_ , that had been the same color as his suit jacket; no base coat or top coat; lots of cursing as he wondered how something so thin could take so damn long to dry; and a wrinkled mess as he tried to cover over his smudges without removing the old layer of polish first. 

Now, however, he washes his feet, separates his toes, and his mind floats to the same calm, easy place that he reaches whenever he cleans his guns. 

He slides the brush over his nails, carefully avoiding the cuticles, and the red looks—nice. Like cherries, or lipstick, or Q’s tongue when it flicks out of his mouth as he thinks about a distracting problem. 

When he sees the finished product, he doesn’t flashback to stepping barefoot through pools of blood. He just thinks, _Look at that even application and striking color; it looks lovely_. 

And he does, hairy and callused though his feet are. He looks lovely. Just a little bit. 

*** 

“I need your feet,” Q tells him the next day. 

Bond looks up from the after-action report that he’s been fictionalizing into acceptability on Q’s sofa. His heart thuds even as he forces a good-humored smirk onto his face. “You can’t have them,” he says. “They’re mine, and I’m rather attached.” 

“I just need to stick these under your arches,” Q says, pinching a pair of small, translucent squares between his thumbs and forefingers and holding them out for Bond to see. “Tracker prototypes. They’re less likely to be found and disabled on missions than subdermal ones that people know to scan for, and they might even escape notice in the event of your capture. But they need more testing before they can be offered to agents in the field.” 

Bond looks at Q’s damnably earnest face, full of hope for an innovation that might save Bond’s life one day. He caves. “Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I could offer you a loan,” he says. 

He unlaces his polished black boots and sets them to one side. 

He takes off one sock, then the next, and puts them in the boots for safe-keeping. 

He keeps a very firm poker-face when Q kneels down in front of him for a personal application rather than letting him put the tracking squares on himself. The unmistakable red of his nails nearly shines, bold and brassy against his lightly tanned skin. 

Q’s cheeks are tinged with pink when Bond looks up from his socks, but he’s not laughing or sneering; his intent eyes are the same as they normally are, his lips pinched with the same focus that he gives to all of his inventions. Apparently, for once in his life, Q has no comment. 

Bond lets out a small, quiet exhale that definitely isn’t a sigh of relief. 

Silently, Q curls his hand around the heel of Bond’s foot, twists it so the bottom is in full view, and smooths the flexible little square onto Bond’s sensitive arch with firm slides of his fingers. He does the same to Bond’s right foot. After he finishes giving Bond a brief lecture about what features to look out for and how not to lose the squares down the drain, he stays kneeling.

He stays kneeling, his head bowed in front of Bond, and runs his fingers across the tops of Bond’s toes, just avoiding the polish. 

Apparently, he has something to say after all. Perfect. It’ll probably be a snide little remark about— 

“I like the color,” Q says, looking up at him at last. “It suits you. And the polish looks very smooth and clean; you've practiced." He smiles a little. "I was always too impatient to be much good at it, but these look lovely.” 

Bond swallows. “…Thank you,” he manages to say, and then Q stands up, and Bond puts his socks and shoes back on. He goes back to his reports, and Q goes back to his work, and it’s as though the revelation of his little hobby has never happened. 

That should be what he wants, right? 

Two mornings later, Bond removes his polish before coming to work, so he can spend some time in the pool. When he visits Q’s office after his swim, he discovers a squashy, red-wrapped parcel waiting for him on his side of Q’s sofa, _To: Bond From: Q,_ and Q himself conveniently absent. Inside the parcel, he finds a red scarf, almost the same shade as _Paint the Town_. Though it looks gender-neutral enough, the tag tells him that it came out of the women’s section of a high-end retailer. It’s made of pashmina, and it’s so soft that Bond spends a good half-minute just petting it, up and down, up and down, before he even thinks to put it on. 

It’s not lingerie. But maybe it’s a start. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism is welcome. With this ficlet in particular, I know nothing about nail polish except what Google told me, so please let me know if I got something wrong. Thank you for reading! <3


	8. Give me the tea or bad things will happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q isn't going to stand for Bond's extortion. He might climb for it, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to isthisrubble for her eagle-eyed beta-ing; among other things, Bond and Q would be positioned much more vaguely in your minds without her.

Bond breaking into his home was one thing.

Q had had Bond’s DNA and retinal ID entered into the scanners after the second visit. After the third, he had started bullying Bond into sitting down at his solder-stained kitchen table to play Scrabble with him, and had watched with increasing entertainment as Bond drunkenly tried to argue for the inclusion of slang and foreign vocabulary on the board.  

(For his part, Bond let himself be bullied, shared the top-shelf booze he brought with him, and got handsy as a last resort persuasive tactic.)  

Bond breaking into his home and stealing his tea was something else. Apparently, the handsiness had been Bond’s second-to-last resort.

Q bounced on the balls of his feet as if he had any hope of catching Bond if he decided to move. Tonight’s scotch had given him confidence. “Give me the tea, or bad things will happen,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “The triple word score isn’t worth this madness.”

Standing behind the opposite end of the kitchen table, Bond hefted Q’s Harney and Sons tea tin in his hand as if measuring its weight. In the same cool tone that he used on missions, he said, “Quidlet is a word. Admit it, and this can go back on the shelf where it belongs. Otherwise…” He caressed the crease of the lid threateningly.  

Visions of tea bags flying everywhere and an under-caffeinated morning danced through Q’s head. But he was sitting on a tile rack full of useless vowels, and there were only a few good consonants left in the bag. If he folded, then quidlet on the triple would be sure to give Bond the win.

If only he could get to his mobile, which he’d dropped on the kitchen counter behind Bond before the game had begun. He could make a counter-threat and they’d be back to the usual standoff.   

Bond twitched to the left and grinned as Q’s feet made an aborted jerk in the same direction, like a dog after a ball its owner hadn’t actually thrown. “You know what you have to do if you want it,” Bond said, smirking and gravel-voiced because to Bond everything was innuendo.   

As if Q would just roll over for him.

Q glared. Forget the fucking mobile. “It’s not a bloody word!” he said, and charged, rounding the kitchen table and leaping for the tea tin.

Bond lifted the tea tin high above his head, caught Q by the shoulder with insulting ease, and gave a sharp jerk that spun Q so his back landed against Bond’s chest. Bond even wrapped an ‘and stay there’ arm around him to keep him there.  

Damn—intercepted. But not defeated!

Q ignored the arm like a safety belt around his chest. He squirmed in Bond’s hold, grabbed for Bond’s outstretched, tea-thieving bicep, and clung monkey-like once his hands found it. “Death before surrender! Tea before dignity!” he cried, and wriggled harder, grunting as he tried to pull Bond’s arm—and the tea—into easier reach. It was like trying to shift an oak tree…which gave him an idea about Bond’s climbability.

Bond’s laugh turned into a gasp halfway through as Q pushed his bum back against Bond’s cock. Q took advantage of the slight relaxation of an already fairly loose grip to swing up with his legs. His hold on Bond’s arm provided just the leverage he needed to hoist himself up until he was clinging upside-down to Bond, his ankles and hands both wrapped like a vine around the arm holding his tea hostage.

Bond grunted and shifted as Q swung himself up, but kept his arm held high through Q’s machinations. “What are you trying to do, you silly git?” he asked. His muscles bulged with effort beneath Q’s grip, and he palmed Q’s arse with his free hand, stabilizing them.

Q glared as best as he could from his awkward angle. “You can’t hold me up forever!” he said, and inched his feet up Bond’s wrist. If he could make it to Bond’s fingers, then he might be able to kick the tea tin out of Bond’s hand.

Sure enough, it only took another moment for Bond’s arms to start shaking.

Admittedly, however, a large part of the shaking was because Bond didn’t seem able to look at Q without convulsing with laughter.  

“You’re cracking!” Q crowed into Bond’s armpit as Bond quaked with mirth. “Admit it! Admit it’s not a word! And give me my tea!”

“Oh my god,” Bond said, staggering and gasping for breath between chortles, “look at you—you’re such a little—fuck, I’m about to fall over, you’re too heavy!” Bond’s arm lurched under his weight, his hip knocking against the kitchen table.

“Mutually assured destruction,” Q said as Bond staggered. He squeezed Bond’s arm tighter, determined to hold on when victory was close at hand. “Drop the tea or we’ll both fall!” Daringly, he reached out with one foot and started prying Bond’s fingers off the tea tin with his toes.  

“Or I could do  _this_ ,” Bond said, and laughed again as Q succeeded in poking his pinky finger away. “Better hold tight, now.”

With that warning, Bond withdrew his hand from Q’s arse and flung out his arm—and Q with it—right over the kitchen table, using Q’s body to scatter letter tiles in all directions.

Q squeaked, held tight, and shut his eyes through the sweeping motion, only opening them again when he felt himself come to a gentle stop with the flat game board under his back. Still clinging to Bond, he felt like a turtle stuck on its shell. He peered around Bond’s arm and edged his toes forward until they were gripping the cool metal tea tin that had been the cause of all this nonsense. Bloody tea.

Bond unclenched his white-knuckled grip on the tin, slid it out of the feeble grasp of Q’s toes, transferred it to his other hand, and set it down on the table somewhere behind Q’s head. “How about mutually assured seduction instead of destruction?” Bond asked, looming over him with a heated stare and a mouth that twitched upward whenever his gaze strayed from Q’s face and he caught another glimpse of Q’s limpet-like limbs.

With his tea in relative safety, there was room for other things to surge to the forefront of Q’s consciousness:

the warmth of Bond’s skin under his hands and ankles

the happy crinkles at the corners of Bond’s eyes

the proximity of his crotch to Bond’s forearm

the fact that he’d literally climbed Bond like a tree

the way he’d never once thought that Bond would drop him.

Maybe it was time to admit that there was more between them than drunken groping whenever Bond got it into his head to play an inadmissible word and Q decided to challenge it, which had been happening increasingly often lately. His mobile, and with it the online dictionary, had been left on the counter for a reason.

Q let his legs fall down over the edge of the table, but tugged on Bond’s arm and had Bond pull him into a sitting position before letting go with his hands as well. He was suddenly level with Bond’s face again, and Q’s eyes darted away from Bond’s gaze only to fix on Bond’s whiskery smirk instead. The mouth on him! How many times had he whispered filth into Q’s ear, one hand stroking teasingly along the crease of his inner thigh while he attempted to use some French slang or other in a semi-convincing English sentence? Now Q would have a chance to put Bond’s persuasive mouth to another use altogether.

(Perhaps Q could even have him  _fumer le cigare_ , as Bond had once said when putting an ‘e’ on the ‘cigar’ could have opened him up for a triple letter score.)  

Q’s toes curled just thinking about what he and Bond could get up to if they really put their minds to it, but when Bond leaned forward to kiss him, he leaned back and pressed a warning hand against Bond’s chest. “We can start after you put my Earl Grey back on its shelf,” he said.

Bond frowned. “You’re joking,” he said, trying to lean forward again, but Q’s hand on his chest held firm.

With his other hand, Q reached back until he found the tea tin they had warred over, and he pressed it back into Bond’s palm. “Don’t mess with the tea,” he said.

Bond put the tea back.

***

The next morning, while the post-coital sweat was still cooling on their bodies, Bond stopped sucking a tingling bruise onto Q’s hip for long enough to say, “‘Quidlet’ is definitely going on the accepted words list.”

“The hell it is!” Q said, and there ensued a brief wrestling match, which Bond let him win.

Bond  _liked_  when Q climbed on top of him, Q had discovered, liked the feeling of Q’s strong thighs surrounding him and Q’s weight holding him down. “How shall we decide, then?” Bond asked, looking up at Q with unsettling fondness.

After a moment of consideration, Q came up with what he thought was honestly one of his better ideas. “I suggest,” he said, “that the person who has the most orgasms in the next twenty-four hours gets to determine the acceptability of putting quidlet into play.” He didn’t bother hiding his evil grin as he watched a real struggle play out on Bond’s face. Pleasing his lovers was a matter of pride for Bond, but he also hated to lose to Q—even at Scrabble.  

But after a moment, Bond said, “Done,” and from the triumphant spark in his eyes, he thought he’d figured out a loophole.

“Let’s see what you’ve got, then,” Q said, and leaned down to kiss him.

No matter who won, there would be another round, of course: another game, another challenge, another challenge accepted. Q could do worse than someone who always matched him toe to toe and brain to brain, and who never let him fall.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written partly for the MI6Cafe prompt “Give me tea or bad things will happen,” but mostly for No Shame November; Bond and Q playing Scrabble and monkeying around is probably the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever written. Also, a tiny part of this is a cheeky homage to all of the times in the novels when Fleming derives drama from card game technicalities that I know nothing about.
> 
> (P.S. Q would likely have one of the fancy boards that spin around to each player and have little raised edges around the letter boxes to stop the tiles from going everywhere, but he presumably knows better than to bring anything like that out around James “Oops, did I break that?” Bond, so they’re playing on a standard cardboard one instead. :P)


	9. Love is All You Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond brings Q to a secret magical tree house where you can summon anything while you’re inside it. Q struggles to summon things until he figures out that there’s a trick to it. A sexy trick. (Crack)

“You brought me to a magic tree house so we could fuck,” Q said, and peered over the tops of his glasses at Bond as though he were a particularly undisciplined student. “A magic. Tree house. Magic!”

Bond heaved a great sigh beneath him. At least he’d landed on the rug in front of the impossible fireplace when Q had seen that the tree house was bigger and fancier on the inside than the outside, realized the situation, and pounced on him. “You don’t have the tools to study magic here,” Bond said, “and I know from experience that we’re going to find ourselves wandering in the woods without any idea where the treehouse is in about twenty-four hours. So, instead of responsible scientific inquiry…”

“You brought us here for a holiday,” Q said. “A literally magical holiday.”

Bond smirked, stared hard at a nearby corner of the air, and caught the bottle of lube that materialized before it could fall to the floor. “A sexy magical holiday,” he said.

“Oh my god!” Q said, staring at the bottle of lube, and then he blew a raspberry into Bond’s suddenly shirtless torso in an apparent expression of delight.

Bond tried and failed to stifle a giggle. He couldn’t even remember the last time anyone had blown a raspberry on him.

Q looked up at the sound. “This is already the best holiday in the world,” he said, and kissed Bond’s bellybutton. “Now,” he squirmed up Bond’s body and propped his elbows up onto Bond’s chest, “how do I make things appear like that?”

“There’s a knack to it,” Bond said, and ran his fingers through Q’s hair and down the back of his neck, so he shivered. “You’re already starting to get it.” He glanced down at his naked chest pointedly. “That wasn’t me, you know.”

“It wasn’t?” Q asked.

“No,” Bond said, smiling. “Now try to do yours.”

Q screwed up his face, his eyes closed and his brow and nose scrunched up with concentration.

Bond leaned up and kissed his furrowed brow. “It’s not so hard as all that,” he said once Q had opened his pretty green eyes again. “It feels natural. Like sex.”

“Hmm,” Q said, and rested his head against Bond’s chest for a few beats before sitting up so he could lock eyes with Bond. “Let me try something?” he asked.

Bond spread his arms out above his head, arched his neck, and widened his legs a bit. “I’m yours to experiment on,” he said. “Just avoid the Frankenstein lightning.”

“I think I can manage to animate you in a different way,” Q said dryly, and gave a short sucking kiss to the hollow of Bond’s collarbone.

Bond rewarded him with a pleased sigh.  

Q explored his way up Bond’s neck in short, sharp nips and sweet, lingering kisses, a familiar journey that had Bond melting into the rug, the last of his hesitancies banished from his mind. Q hadn’t run away screaming about physical impossibilities, or yammered on about hallucinogens, or–

Q pressed his mouth against the sensitive place where Bond’s neck met his shoulder, sucking softly at first, teasingly.

Bond arched into the little jolts of pleasure, whining for more. He could do that with Q; they could beg for each other, and it was all right because they didn’t keep score.

“I’ve got you,” Q said, having pulled away for just a moment to whisper it in Bond’s ear, and then he bit down hard in that same sensitive place, his hands pinning Bond’s forearms to keep him from jackknifing upward.

“Fuck!” Heat raced down Bond’s spine and ran straight to his cock, and then Q started sucking, started making Bond squirm with the pleasure-pain of the deep bruise he was raising.

Bond’s naked cock suddenly rubbed against Q’s–their trousers and pants had disappeared. After a few moments of pleasurable but friction-filled rubbing, Q pressed a quick kiss against Bond’s lips, and their cocks became slick with lube. “Oh my god,” Q said, panting and grinding against him, “fuck, fuck, fuck! I did it!”

“Good job,” Bond said, his laughter swallowed up in a gasp as Q took their cocks in hand and put his long, talented fingers to good use. “That’s it…”

Afterward, Bond was the one who magicked up the wet flannel and cleaned them off. He supposed he could simply wish the come away, but the warm, soft care of the flannel brushing over their bodies was part of their routine.

“I did it,” Q said again, sprawled out beside Bond on the rug with a dopey grin on his face. “I cast a spell.”

“You can cast that kind of spell on me anytime,” Bond said, leering. And then he got his revenge: he leaned over and blew raspberries into Q’s belly until tears of laughter streamed down Q’s face, and Q had to kiss him in order to conjure a handkerchief to wipe them away.

Q would get the hang of summoning in the treehouse without kissing; might already have done, if the smug glint in his eye was any indication. But that was something Bond had learned because he’d been alone when he’d first stumbled across the tree house. Q had come up with a new way—Q had the best ideas—so why not cast spells with love while they could?

They had about twenty-three hours left of their tree house holiday. Bond pressed a kiss against Q’s cheek—his first love spell—and a case of water bottles thumped into being beside them. It looked like they’d need it.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @lunaisfree on tumblr prompted me with ‘magical treehouse sex’ when I told her that I was struggling with writer’s block. Somehow this crack fic is indeed what broke it! Happily, it also works as a fill for the "I was taking some overdue holiday" MI6Cafe prompt, so I'm posting it here as well. 
> 
> Note that this has nothing to do with the Magic Treehouse series, which I have not read.


	10. the happy reward, as I trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of SPECTRE, Bond joins the rest of the MI6 squad for a meal and a farewell. Tanner’s POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to lunaisfree for giving this a quick going over!

In the wee hours of the morning, after initial statements and explanations had been made to various officials and the media, Tanner drove M, Moneypenny, and Q to his favorite all-night fish and chip shop. They bloody deserved it after the last 72 hours.

“Oh god, yes,” Moneypenny said when she saw where they were. “I’m starving. Tanner, you have the best ideas.” She whipped herself out of the passenger side of the vehicle; her walk to the counter to order was the fastest she’d moved in hours.

“Commendations are in order for such excellent tactical thinking,” M said, tongue-in-cheek on the surface, but he gave a nod that wasn’t anything but thankful before following Moneypenny out of the car and into the shop. 

Tanner waited a moment before peering into the dimly-lit backseat. “Q?”

Q had his head tucked in against the door and his feet curled under himself, a little ball of dozed-off boffin.

“Wakey wakey eggs and bakey,” Tanner said, sing-song, like he often did when he brought Q some take-away and there was no one else around. Q was usually just absorbed in his work, not asleep, but Tanner was pretty sure he’d done it enough to make it a Pavlovian response by—

Yes, there he was, shivering awake right on schedule.

Q’s eyes blinked open. “Food?” he asked, peering around the car as though Tanner might have hidden it.

“Fish and chips,” Tanner said. “You’ve got a short walk into the shop, I’m afraid. No handy take-away containers.”

“You’ve spoiled me,” Q said, and gave a jaw-cracking yawn. “Shit, I could eat my entire weight in chips right now.”

Q’s hair was as wild as it ever got, the circles under his eyes had circles, and he’d missed cleaning a streak of blood that had dripped under his jaw from a cut on his temple. In the past few days, he’d endured plane travel, field work, limited enemy pursuit, and Bond, and he’d still come through for them and managed to stop the Nine Eyes program from getting online. The man deserved a hug and a medal, and he’d probably get neither, MI6 being what it was.

Tanner got out of the car and pulled Q’s door open. “Come on,” he said, offering Q his hand. “You’ll feel better with some food in your belly.”

“I’ll feel better when 007 drags his sorry arse into medical,” Q retorted, but he gripped Tanner’s hand and let himself be hauled out of the car.

“He’ll check in when he needs to,” Tanner said. “He’s a big boy. Mostly,” he added pointedly, catching sight of the shadowy figure leaning against the chip shop wall. 

“I suppose,” Q said, and drew Tanner close so they could bump shoulders before letting go of his hand and stepping back. “But sometimes he’s also a big idiot who tries to do his own stitches.”

Tanner grinned as Bond chuckled and stepped into the light cast by the street lamps.

Q gave a wide-eyed, full-body flinch that Tanner might even be generous enough not to reenact for Moneypenny once they were inside.

“Always complimentary, Q,” Bond said. He had clean white bandages wrapped around his skull and his hands, and probably everywhere else on his body too, hidden beneath the old trackies he was wearing.

“You’re supposed to stay in Medical once you’re checked in, Bond,” Q said.

“Madeleine’s still there,” Bond said, “but I couldn’t bear to miss out on the chips.” Just as Tanner nearly rolled his eyes at their stupid not-flirting, Bond’s gaze landed on his, grateful and warm.

Oh—by ‘chips’ Bond meant all of them. Well. Good.

“M and Moneypenny are waiting,” Bond said, nodding toward the door.

Q and Tanner glanced at each other with a shared sense of irony; as if Bond had never been late!

Then again, this might well be their last meal all together.

They all five of them sat around a table and did nothing but stare into space until their orders were called—Moneypenny’s and M’s first, of course. M took one look at their salivating glances and poured half of his chips onto a pile of napkins for the rest of them to share. Moneypenny had also ordered five pints, for which various murmurs of “thank god” and “bless you” were appropriately dispensed.

“Maybe they’re all for me,” Moneypenny teased, even as she handed the tray of drinks off to Tanner so he could pass the remaining four around. “It’s been that kind of day.” She drank deep. 

As Tanner sat in the chair across from Bond and sipped his beer, he sank into a sense-memory of a hundred different pints consumed next to him while they snarked about work, caught up on golf, or gossiped like a pair of old hens. It had been—how many years now, since one of them had caught the other’s eye in M’s office and they’d gone out for a late lunch together? “That bitch,” he remembered Bond opening with, and laughing.

He’d sat across from Bond after Vesper, too—waited out the frozen stillness and smirking fakery, until one day Bond had suddenly asked if he knew what was happening in the latest PGA tournament.

The Bond of tonight had his girl waiting for him, safe in hospital, and his duty hadn’t ended in a kill. Even with bandages everywhere, he looked more solid than he had in years. Once the food and beer had warmed their bellies, he spoke animatedly, drawing everyone in with teasing and questions, holding their gaze with unspoken respect.

He asked about relationships, in his Bond-ish way. (“What do you do in the hours when you’re not sleeping together?”) And in between M talking about his worst physical therapist and Moneypenny laughing about activating security alarms when she’d dressed to kill without thinking about it, Tanner realized that Bond was gathering intel about transitioning from field work, too.

Sometime after their second beer, he caught Moneypenny’s eye and jerked his head at Bond, who was smiling and nodding as Q, his hands forming loose patterns in the air, talked about jury-rigging explosives in the field when one happened not to have any Q Branch watches around. Most of it was information that Bond would already know, but not all of it, and Bond asked for clarification more than once, suddenly the eager pupil.

Q hadn’t been able to contribute much to the previous topics of conversation. Now he had Bond’s undivided attention. 

Moneypenny gave Tanner a small nod.

One last brief. All they could give him for the road. More than they’d ever been able to give him before; the old sod had finally learned how to say goodbye instead of swanning off like a berk into the sunset. 

Tanner caught himself delaying the inevitable—one last question, one last story, one last unspoken competition to get M to snort into his beer—and he wasn’t the only one. However, once the dark sky brightened into sweet grey, Bond shook their hands with finality and jumped into a cab, ready to start his new life.

“So he’s gone,” Q said, his eyes still following the cab down the road.

“Apparently,” M said, his tired voice carefully neutral.

“Ten pounds says he’s back by this time next year,” Moneypenny said.

The cab rounded a corner and disappeared, taking Bond with it. 

Part of being a good friend was knowing when to support a clean break; when to hope that certain things would stay broken. “I’ll take that bet,” said Tanner.

He could almost believe that Bond wouldn’t come back. That he wouldn’t need another gun and another mission in order to keep himself glued together.

Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for last year’s Pre-Spectre Fest prompt ‘broken.’ Started this after the movie came out and only finished it today. It was interesting to write Tanner’s POV, and also a bit therapeutic to give the MI6 squad a proper goodbye. 
> 
> Constructive criticism is always welcome. <3


	11. Old Dogs, New Beds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix helps Bond on a mission; Bond wins a bet. Felix/Bond ficlet

Felix cuddled close into Bond and kissed him on the cheek, his winter-dry lips soft against Bond's skin. “He looks tough,” he told the hotel receptionist, “but he gets so cranky from traveling, especially in this New England chill! A nice warm bed is just what we need right now.” Felix laughed a little too loudly, playing the tipsy indulgent husband.

The sound echoed throughout the gilded lobby. Their mark had expensive taste, which suited Bond just fine. “Don’t pretend you’ll be able to do anything but sleep in that bed, darling,” he said, getting his revenge for the ‘cranky’ comment. “Not after all that champagne on the flight over here. Now let the nice woman give us our room key.” Bond nuzzled his kissed cheek against Felix’s temple and exchanged a familiar glance with the receptionist: he’s an embarrassing old goat, but he’s my embarrassing old goat.

The receptionist smiled, her eyes crinkling at the edges: clearly he and Felix were adorable together. “Of course, sir.” She gave them a pair of room cards. “Please enjoy your stay, Mr. Bizet.” 

They made it to their suite, Felix stumbling down the hall with his elbow hooked in Bond’s arm. “Sweetheart, you’re too good to me,” he slurred as they paused for Bond to put the key in the door, and he planted a lip-smacking kiss on Bond’s neck, as if aiming for his cheek and missing.

“I know, dear, but you’ll make it up to me,” Bond replied, letting an edge of laughter into his voice. Felix’s whiskers tickled.

They checked their room for bugs, and only when the search came up clean did Felix start cackling. “Think your quartermaster will believe you when you say you can do undercover work now?”

“Well, I had a very good partner,” Bond told him, grinning. “And now I have fifty pounds, courtesy of said quartermaster. Want to spend it somewhere?”

“Want to fool around, and then spend it somewhere?” Felix countered, grinning back.

Good old Felix. “Rock-paper-scissors for who tops,” Bond said.

He threw paper.

Felix threw scissors.

Bond leaped onto the bed as if in a swoon. “Be gentle with me,” he teased.

Felix’s eyes were warm on his. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll give you what you need.”

Bond wasn’t—this was Felix. They always came through for each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the 007 Fest, and posted here so I'd have it archived somewhere other than tumblr. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! <3


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